In recent years, consideration has been given to installing small cells (Home NodeBs: HeNBs) within limited areas, such as homes or offices, and carrying out high-speed communications with only limited users, such as closed subscriber group (CSG) members, using those small cells. Standardization efforts regarding such small cells arc being made by the 3GPP. The term CSG members, in this context, refers to grouped users managed by a small cell.
It is speculated that small cells are generally used for data communications and connected to household devices, such as personal computers, television sets, and/or the like. By being connected to a variety of such household devices, the number of connected terminals increases for small cells. This leads to the problem of increased signaling traffic for the core network to process.
It is known that a small cell gateway (HeNB GW) is sometimes disposed as an intermediate node between a small cell and an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) (e.g., NPL 1). According to NPL 1, in MME, by having a small cell gateway appear as a small cell, it is possible to keep interfaces from increasing.